Dominique Strauss-Kahn Tied to Prostitution Ring?

On Sunday, Dominique Strauss-Kahn watched his fellow Socialist party member Francois Hollande take the presidential candidacy nomination he was once supposed to win, but the former International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief was likely distracted by new allegations that he held orgies with prostitutes in hotels in France and New York.

The embattled economist was on a list of politicians, lawyers and businessmen allegedly involved in a prostitution ring that extended from France to Belgium and may have included women under the age of 18. Five men have already been arrested.

Strauss-Kahn said he wants to be questioned by police, so that he can put an end to these insinuations and extrapolations,” according to The Associated Press.

Investigators also allege that senior police chief Jean-Christophe Lagarde acted as pimp, who arranged meetings with escort girls and even brought prostitutes to New York when Strauss-Kahn was the head of the IMF, French weekly Journal du Dimanche first reported.

Prostitution is illegal in the United States, but legal in France, although those selling sex must be over the age of 18.

Strauss-Kahn was once considered to be France's next president -- a left-leaning politician capable of defeating Nicolas Sarkozy. But a slew of sexual misconduct allegations, stemming from an alleged nine-minute encounter with a hotel maid in New York, have indefinitely stalled his political career.

The banker has been cleared of charges in both the United States and France, where he was sued by journalist Tristane Banon, but the prostitution scandal damages his still-questionable reputation.

During the initial arrest in May, Strauss-Kahn alleged that the arrest in his Sofitel Manhattan hotel suite could have been concocted by his enemies as a ploy to ruin his name.

When discussing in a televised interview last month, he again implied that someone could have tipped off police.

Strauss-Kahn also admitted to committing moral fault of which I am not proud in the New York hotel room, but he did not say that he was guilty of any criminal act, nor he did apologize to the maid, to France, or to anyone.

He did mention the infidelity against his wife Anne Sinclair, calling it “a failing vis-á-vis my wife.